Hello, fellow writers! This won't be a long post. I'm in the middle of packing to move, so today, I have a simple challenge for you: set yourself a deadline.
The Power of a Deadline
A funny thing happens when you move.
You start out carefully. Each glass is conscientiously wrapped in six pages of newspaper. Each collectible is cushioned and boxed as if interred, and each box Sharpied with item, location, and name. Then a few days into this, something strange happens: you realize it doesn't matter.
Those socks didn't need to be separated. Those books? Yeah, they're all going on the same shelf. In fact, that collection of DVDs, though belonging to six different people, really doesn't need to be itemized now, because what matters is getting them to the new location where you can fully express your organizational skills.
It gets worse. If you've got a lot to pack, after a while, this means “put it in a box and tape it up and we are done.” That's because the stress of an approaching deadline suddenly forces you to realize what's important and what is not.
To put it another way, when you're running out of time, you no longer have the luxury of faffing around. That's when you really get down to business.
No More Faffing Around
Do you want to be an effective writer? Set yourself a deadline. Not an “it doesn't matter” deadline. An “if I don't make this it will cost me” deadline. If a date you cannot move casts its ominous shadow over your day, you will suddenly find yourself much less likely to waste time, to write things you don't really want to write, or even to question the story you're trying to tell.
If you convince yourself that the story has to be written and that you don't have the luxury of remaking and tweaking forever, you will find yourself getting that story done.
I need to get back to packing now, but I want to challenge you: set a deadline. DO NOT allow yourself to miss it or move it. Get your story done.
Have you set yourself a deadline before? Let us know in the comments.
PRACTICE
Consider this one a new take on the usual practice:
First, pick a scene. It can be a part of your work in progress, or the start of a new story. Don't have a work in progress? Try this writing prompt: while cleaning a fish tank, a worn-out barista receives an unusual phone call.
Second, set your fifteen minutes, and absolutely do not allow yourself more for this piece.
Third, write it. Don't let yourself fudge. Don't go over—if you haven't finished in fifteen minutes, you can do that on your own time, but post your fifteen minutes of work in the comments below. No cheating!
Share your practice in the comments section and don't forget to respond to your fellow writers' words.
Weiss stood in shock as the pink-haired girl in front of her grew a single black wing. Who stood up, panting. “Well that hurt.” the teen girl said. Her and hand on her shoulder. Her gaze when to Weiss, who noticed her eyes were now a dark green and cat-like.
“You let him infect you.” Weiss growled “How far will you for your vengeance on my family? Well Summer?! Answer me!”
Summer chucked. “As long I get to see your family burn for what they did. But, it will be on my own terms. I won’t degrade myself to becoming a puppet like you.”
“Me? A puppet?” Weiss wondered. Not having a clue what Summer meant.
“Try hard as you might to be your own girl, but you’ll all ways be daddy’s little captive princess.”
That’s a future scene in one of my stories. Would write more, but my fifteen minutes was up.
This was a much needed kick in the pants. It got me to start a scene from my WIP I’ve been hemming and hawing over. Reviews are always appreciated!
“Oh no.”
“What?” Detective Cameron was staring at something behind me, her eyes wide with alarm. I moved to look, but she put her hand on my shoulder and ushered me towards her car.
“No, don’t look. I don’t think she’s seen us yet, if we hurry –”
“Yoohoo! Detective Cameron, darling!”
The detective stopped short, shoulders sagging. She muttered something under her breath that sounded a lot like, “Hell’s bells.” Straightening, she turned around and flashed a toothy smile that was more lupine than friendly. “Ms. Speck. Lovely to see you.”
I finally turned as well, and was blinded by the loudest shade of yellow I had ever seen in my life. It took me a moment to shape the yellow into a dress, a dress on a woman who was striding across the parking lot. She stopped in front of us, planting a well-manicured hand on her cocked hip and looking up at Detective Cameron through her eyelashes. “Thank goodness I caught you. You were walking so fast. If I didn’t know better, Detective, I’d say you were trying to avoid me.”
“Whatever gave you that impression.”
The woman laughed, but a flash in her eyes – so quick I nearly missed it – tipped me off that she knew full well we had been trying to avoid her. She turned her sharp gaze on me. “And who’s this?”
Joseph was eating a delectable ham sandwich at the new deli around the corner when a freak tear in the fabric of space and time sent him tumbling exactly two minutes and thirty-nine seconds into the future.
“Mommyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” The pedestrians on the other side of the road regarded him strangely. Joseph was too shocked to apologize. He whirled around, and nearly choked on his mouthful of ham and bread at the sight of the deli in front of him, and did so when he saw himself, sitting calmly at the window, writing in a newspaper.
It was too strange to comprehend. But the only piece of information that made it to the tiny still-functioning part of his brain made him forget all about his current situation. For there, creeping up on him, the other him, was a mass of quivering darkness at least thirty feet high.
Joseph looked on in horror as the monstrosity swallowed the clone, or whatever it was. The diner at the next table never looked up.
Then it turned to him.
Not exactly my best, but you can’t edit much with fifteen minutes.
“Damn it!” Hector screamed as he nearly dropped his cell phone in the fish tank.
“Don’t’ answer it, don’t answer it, don’t answer it,” he kept saying out loud to himself. He couldn’t believe the caller ID was still in his phone. But then again the Sprint Store did keep transferring the old numbers every time he got a new phone.
The phone stopped, and there was no voice mail, so Hector relaxed. Just for a second. There he was again. The phone started ringing again. Manny The Maniac, that was the nickname he had back on the block. It’s not that they’d lived on the poor side of town, it was middle class, but Manny was a maniac at any income level.
“Hello, Manny.” There was silence on the other end for a couple of seconds and Hector was about to hang up when…”
“Oh, man. I can’t believe you took my call. I can’t believe that after twenty years you still have my phone programmed into to yours! “
Hector waited him out.
“How’d you like to come and work for me?”
Hector thought he sounded serious. But what was Manny doing? Last time he’d heard about five years ago, Manny was driving a cement truck. What could Manny possibly have to offer him? Of course, Hector was on his fifth day working as a Barista at Starbucks, his third dead end job just this year. Still, Manny had been a bigger screw-up than him, and by far. But what would it hurt?
“Okay, Manny. What kind of job are you talking about?”
“Well, my friend. I had an idea for a phone App that tracks any stock and then tells you when to buy and when to sell. I know I was a screwup, but you always put up with me, and remember I was crazy good with math and statistics analysis. Anyway. I’ve made three hundred grand selling the App and another three hundred grand buying and selling stock on my own this year. I need help. Are you in?”
Great advice. Setting realistic goals with realistic deadlines is the only way to get something done. I’ve tried a bunch. Sometimes it’s “Write a new short story this month”, other times it’s “Finish this story before I go to bed.” Either way, the only way to succeed is to FINISH something, so thanks for the great pointers 🙂
Caedis breathed as he stepped through the doors leading to the balcony. The crisp night air felt relieving.
A movement caught his eye. He turned to see Merith walking in his direction.
“Majesty.” he said with a slight bow. “Forgive me, I was unaware I had such illustrious company.”
She smiled. “Come now, Caedis. Such formal flattery is unneeded out here.” She sighed as she joined him. “Even a queen needs air and time away from court intrigues.”
“I agree.” Caedis said.
“How is your wife?” Merith asked.
“Regrettably, she has taken ill. My physician assures me she’ll be alright in the morning.”
“Earl Mares is absent as well. Curious. He’d never miss an event such as this.”
It’s fade to a man voice says wake up wake up! still feeling delirious open my eyes.The man a front of me is Franklin he’s say it’s nine o’ clock in the mourning and like oh shit my class starts in 34 minutes so got up and rush out of my friends house. I start the car drove out the parking space something was telling me to look at my smartphone I stop and look it wasting there.So through
it’s at the house I rush back inside the house people are starting to get up I ask Franklin about
smartphone whereabouts he said some left their smartphone in the fish tank.
Yikes, I have a fortnight to finish one first draft before starting a new project. I feel totally stuck but this deadline might just be the butt kicking I needed to get the book finished.
Am mildly panicking now, but that’s motivational too…
Hah, thank you for a good mood. You wrote, that the secret to finishing what you start: set yourself a deadline. It`s a good rule, but better is: if you`ve missed a deadline, you can custom essay writing service. It`s much simpler than forcing yourself to write en essay.
while cleaning a fish tank, a worn-out barista receives an unusual phone call from her mother, whom she hadn’t talk to in 3 years. “Hello mother, why are you calling me”? Batista listened to her mother’s voice through the phone. She was calling to let her astranged daughter know that her father has passed away. “No!! Your lying mom, he isn’t dead”!! After coming to terms with the fact that her father was in fact dead, she asked her mother how he died. “Your father had a heart attack on the way home from work”. Penelope hung up with her mother and set down at one of the tables shell shocked. She couldn’t believe the man that she looked up to all her life is gone. Who was she gonna call for advice now? Definitely not her mother, they couldn’t get along if they was offer money to. Tears started to fall down her face finally. Penelope let out this loud screaming cry of pain. She felt her heart break at that moment.